Dubai airport welcomes 7.8m passengers in March

DUBAI, May 2, 2018

Passenger traffic at Dubai International Airport (DXB) reached 7.85 million in March, according to a traffic report issued today by operator Dubai Airports.

Taking into consideration the earlier Easter holiday period, DXB passenger figures climbed from 7,511,431 during the same period in 2017, to 7,852,501 in March of this year, going up 4.5 per cent year-on-year.

Overall passenger numbers went up 1.1 per cent during the first quarter of 2018, rising to 22,741,194 compared to 22,496,596 recorded during the same period in 2017.

The number of passenger flights in March fell 1.5 per cent to 34,126 compared to 34,634 last year, however, the passengers per flight continued to be above the industry average in March with 230 passengers. Year-to-date flight numbers came in at 98,839, down 1.8 per cent compared to 100,638 recorded during the first quarter of 2017 and the average number of passengers per flight in the first three months of the year rose to 230 passengers, compared to 224 during the corresponding period in 2017 - an increase of 2.7 per cent.

London topped the list of destination cities during the month of March with 348,434 passengers, followed by 216,970 passengers from Mumbai and Bangkok with 208,873 passengers.

India remained the top destination country during March with a total of 1,043,580 passengers, followed by the UK (572,080 passengers), Saudi Arabia (566,292), Pakistan (389,090) and Germany (279,087).

In terms of percentage increase by market, there were two stand out regions - Eastern Europe showed the highest boost at 29.8 per cent compared to last March closely followed by the Russian states (CIS) with a 28.3 per cent year on year growth.

Freight volumes recorded during the month sat at 222,045 tonnes passing through DXB, down 5.7 per cent from the 235,503 tonnes during the same period last year. - TradeArabia News Service